Israel extends $3,500 departure grant to nationals of all African countries

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Israel extends $3,500 departure grant to nationals of all African countries Submitted by MEE staff on Fri, 11/13/2026 - 11:39 Officials hope payment will bring number of departure…

Israel is extending its $3,500 voluntary departure grant to nationals of every African country in a bid to reverse a decline in the number of migrants leaving with state assistance, according to Haaretz.

Until now the payment had been limited mainly to people from a handful of states.

The change took effect on Monday and will remain in place until the end of the year, Israel's Population and Immigration Authority said. Applications must be submitted by 31 December.

It covers African nationals who have stayed in Israel for more than two years without a valid visa, and those holding temporary residency permits.

For the first time, it also includes people who entered Israel legally but overstayed their visas.

The authority expects several thousand more people to be eligible, including citizens of Nigeria, South Africa and Togo.

Before the change, the grant was mostly open to people who crossed into Israel outside official border points. That group includes nationals of Eritrea, Sudan, Ethiopia, Ivory Coast and Guinea, along with citizens of countries that have no diplomatic relations with Israel.

The authority’s figures show that 3,511 African nationals left with help from its Voluntary Departure Unit in 2024. That fell to 2,815 in 2025, a drop of about 20 percent.

In its 2025 annual report, the authority blamed smaller asylum quotas in Canada, the closure of US borders to asylum seekers, and war-related airspace closures that disrupted flights.

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